2010: The Year They Came for the Constitution

I nearly spit out my coffee while reading a New York Times post-election day column titled “Tea Party Rooted in Religious Fervor for Constitution.” One nearly had to pity the Gray Lady’s desperation in running the column.

Oh, my! These rough-around-the-edges provincials have gone and pulled off the biggest electoral tsunami since 1938 by running around touting the wonders of the U.S. Constitution and flagellating Democrats for running afoul of it. Oh, what to do? Why, frame these ignorant upstarts with the tar brush of religious fundamentalism, of course. That always works.

What a load of pitiful poppycock.

Every American who has the educational attainment of fourth grade civics understands that the U.S. Constitution is the very document to which every single elected federal official must swear a fealty oath. Every American past the fourth grade also knows that the entire armed forces of the United States serves to protect and defend that very document: not a president, not even the people, but the U.S. Constitution. We don’t call it the “supreme law of the land” for nothing, folks.

What the New York Times and everyone else associated with the know-nothing media of the left fails to see is that 2010 is already widely known as the year the proverbial “they” came for the Constitution. It was the ninnies of the 111th Congress, led by Pelosi and Reid, that openly trashed our Constitution. It was the 111th Congress, whose flagrant disregard for the limits on their power lit the fires of Tea Parties all across the land.

And sentient Americans who follow politics with even a modicum of scrutiny would think that Democrat pols, who’ve been around a long, long, long time, would at least know enough not to mock the U.S. Constitution in the glare of a rolling video camera or in front of meat-hungry press mongrels.

But, no. Time after time, when asked about the constitutionality of their congressional machinations, Democrat legends had a never-ending outbreak of foot-in-mouth disease.

No human being could possibly ascertain whether a bill could be considered constitutional if he or she had never even read the bill. Yet, over and over again, Democrat Congress members were caught on tape saying exactly that -- that they had not even read the bills they were voting on.

This despicable lackadaisical attitude on the part of our lawmakers came into perfect focus the day a giddy-with-power Nancy Pelosi met with reporters just after she had performed the legislative-blitzkrieg passage of ObamaCare. Still flush with the thrill of pyrrhic victory, Speaker Pelosi was asked whether the bill, especially the individual mandate, was constitutional. Her response will be remembered in constitutional infamy: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

Yes, Ms. Pelosi, the U.S. Constitution is serious enough for you to have sworn an actual oath to uphold it.

Ms. Pelosi may disagree with some as to whether the power to mandate all American citizens to buy a product is conferred on the federal government by the Constitution, but to behave as though this is not a matter for serious concern is pure, unbridled, imperious arrogance. Yes, Ms. Pelosi, the American people still regard the U.S. Constitution as the “supreme law of the land.” Such mocking condescension will be remembered long after the click-click of Madam Speaker’s Guccis are no longer heard on the floors of the U.S. Capitol.

As if it were even possible, Representative Pete Stark then one-upped Madam Pelosi’s constitutional nonchalance. When a valiant citizen queried Representative Stark as to where in the Constitution he and his fellow Democrats had found the legal authority to pass the health care bill, he retorted that “the federal government can do most anything in this country.” Actually, the U.S. Constitution lists quite a number of things that federal government cannot do, individual rights it cannot infringe.

And anyone who thinks otherwise is simply not fit to serve in the United States government -- even as a pencil-pushing clerk.